This is the Byton SIV, it will debut on January 7 on
the CES Las Vegas. SIV stands for Smart Intuitive Vehicle. This, we presume,
refers to the tech on board the The Byton SIV, a new electric SUV from China.
The new Byton brand was founded earlier this year by
a team of mostly German executives who mostly used to work for BMW. The company
is headquartered in Nanjing with offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Santa
Clara, and Munich. The factory will be in Nanjing as well, with production set
to start in early 2019 with a launch on the Chinese car market scheduled for
the fourth quarter of 2019. Price will start around 300.000 yuan or about US$ 45,300.
The SIV SUV will be 4800 mm long and have a
wheelbase of 2950 mm. Upon launch the Byton SIV will be equipped for level 3
(L3) autonomous driving, including Lidar and millimeter-wave radar. Further in
the future this will be upgraded to L4 and finally to L5.
There will be two battery packs available: 60 kWh
for a 350 km range and 90 kWh for a 500 kilometer range. 0-100 will take “5 to
6” seconds. Byton is developing a fast charger that will add 120 kilometers of
range in just ten minutes.
The centerpiece of the whole car is its dashboard.
The dash is a screen measuring 1.25 meter by 25 centimeters. This screen is
called the Shared Experience Display, or SED. The driver can control the main
functions of the screen by a touch screen on the steering wheel.
‘Shared’ refers to the fact that passengers in the
rear can use the center area of the screen to watch TV, the passenger in front
can check the stock market on the are to the right, while the driver can check
his stuff on the are in front of him. Naturally, the SED is connected to the
cloud 24/7. Byton claims the system will have a speed of 1000 megabyte per second.
